Major Surgery Part 1

1/20This quarter-panel has been patched before and is now rusting through inother areas. Patching it again would be a total waste of money since itwill eventually rust through somewhere else. It's vital to remove thepanel, and find out what's going on behind it.

Cancer, there are not many words that ring with pain and death as muchas this one. Whatever treatments are employed, they must have one endresult: all cancer must be removed, or it will eventually come back tohurt you again. A band-aid won't fix this.

The same is true for rust.There is no place for band-aids or patches in any real restoration. Rustmust go. Period.

2/20A new panel from Year One is placed over the original to show you whatis traditionally removed from the car.

There isn't anyone who would argue with this, but youwill get disagreements about the best course of treatment. John Balow ofMuscle car Restorations has learned in his sixteen years of experiencedoing first class restorations to be absolutely merciless in dealingwith rust damage. The reality is rust works its evil deep in the nooks,crannies, and hidden crevices of your car. Even if you properly repairthe damaged part of a panel, you really don't know what other damage isoccurring behind seemingly solid areas. There is no form of CAT scan tosee what's lurking behind sheetmetal. The only true long-term solutionis major exploratory surgery--completely remove the panel and treat theentire area.

John and his talented craftsmen have raised the standardfor panel replacement. They are producing results that are practicallyindistinguishable from an original factory panel.

This is the first in amultiple-part article. We knew that you guys would want to knoweverything about how to do a job like this, so follow along as we getdirty.

In our first lesson, we're going to detail the right way toremove a diseased quarter-panel, so there will be no signs of rejectionwhen the new one is installed.